AMSOIL Blog Moves to a New Location

Yes, we've moved our blog to a new home. You can now find all of our blog content at the AMSOIL website. Visit us today and sign in for regular updates

The New AMSOIL Blog: http://blog.amsoil.com/

Here are some additional links you might want bookmark as well:

AMSOILracing.com

MyAMSOILGarage™

AMSOIL.com/About

(c) Can Stock Photo

Stepping Back In Time: A Fun, Fun T-Bird Song

Cars and rock 'n roll have long gone hand in hand. From Chuck Berry's "No Particular Place To Go" to the Beatles' "Baby You Can Drive My Car,"cars have been a recurring theme in the music of our times. A half century back, when the So Cal beach scene was all the rage, Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote the chart-climber "Fun, Fun, Fun." And what's not to like about a lively tune involving a girl and a T-Bird? The Beach Boys had a #5 single, and America had another fun song about cars.

The song is essentially a story about a teenage girl who tells her dad that she needs his car, which happens to be a Ford Thunderbird, so she can go to the library. As one might suspect by the title, she skips the library and heads off  to go cruisin'... probably catching eyes from some of the boys at the hamburger stand, radio blaring, and whipping it into gear to fly down the road "just as fast as she can." The other girls are jealous cause she drives like an ace, but in the end... well, dad's were young once so he eventually figures out what's really going on.

In a longer version of the song she may have been filling the gas tank so dad wouldn't know how many miles she was putting on the car. Unfortunately, because conventional motor oil is volatile, it boils off under high heat conditions. When dad noticed the oil level was low, he first suspected a leak. He then noticed the odometer had more miles than it ought to have, and his daughter lost her rights to borrow the car.

The Ford T-Bird was introduced to the market in 1955 and quickly became one of the cool cars of the era. The first generation of Thunderbirds cruised from 1955-57, the second generation from 1958-60 and the third from 1961-63. The first T-Birds were two-seat roadsters. But executives began to believe the car would achieve more sales as the full size car which was introduced in 1958. Sales were sensational, helped in no small part by being the first car model named Motor Trend Car of the Year. (Previous to this, Motor Trend name carmakers and not individual models.)

There have been eleven iterations of Thurnderbirds in all, the last one rolling off the assembly line on July 1, 2005. If you have one of these 2005 Thunderbirds, here's a link to the Lookup Guide at MyAMSOIL Garage with information regarding which fluids and filters you need for your car, including capacities. And whatever year you have, we hope you've had fun cruisin' in it.



Photo credit top right: (c) Can Stock Photo

Which is correct, Preventive or Preventative maintenance?

This car could have used a little more TLC.

There are a number of language experts who see a decline in the quality of our language due to things like texting and the internet. This problem of misusing language, however, precedes the digital age. In various parts of the country people say they will borrow you a dollar when they mean lend. Other words frequently mixed up include accept and except, principal and principle, stationary and stationery, and a host of others.

So what is it when we come to preventive maintenance. In many places we see preventative maintenance, and in others it is the shorter preventive.

According to Wikipedia (with a disclaimer that the article needs verification for accuracy) the proper word is preventive maintenance.

Preventive maintenance (PM) has the following meanings:

1. The care and servicing by personnel for the purpose of maintaining equipment and facilities in satisfactory operating condition by providing for systematic inspection, detection, and correction of incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into major defects.

2. Maintenance, including tests, measurements, adjustments, and parts replacement, performed specifically to prevent faults from occurring. 

The primary goal of maintenance is to avoid or mitigate the consequences of failure of equipment. This may be by preventing the failure before it actually occurs which Planned Maintenance and Condition Based Maintenance help to achieve. It is designed to preserve and restore equipment reliability by replacing worn components before they actually fail. Preventive maintenance activities include partial or complete overhauls at specified periods, oil changes, lubrication and so on. In addition, workers can record equipment deterioration so they know to replace or repair worn parts before they cause system failure. The ideal preventive maintenance program would prevent all equipment failure before it occurs.[citation needed]

There is a controversy of sorts regarding the propriety of the usage “preventative."

In point of fact, whatever you call it, the real question is, are you doing it? Routine checking of fluid levels and tire pressure are just two of the responsibilities that come with owning a car or truck. The best way we know to make sure you change your oil at proper intervals is to park your maintenance information in MyAMSOILGarage. You can store maintenance for all your vehicles in one location, get product recommendations and email reminders that it's about that time.  Best of all, it's free.

Luxuries and Necessities

It's hard to imagine life before home computers, before cars, before air conditioning. What's interesting is how many of the items we take for granted as necessities used to be luxuries. And how the list has grown.

At one time we washed clothes down in the river, or by carrying water up from the spring. Clothes were dried on sunny days out on the line.

A Pew Research Study did a comparison of luxuries and necessities from 1996 to 2006. The list of things Americans "can't live without" has been growing, and in 2006 flat screen TVs and iPods were necessities for the first time in some homes. Undoubtedly smartphones will be on that list in the next study.

Do you nuke your food? Only 68% of Americans called their microwave oven a necessity, but that number is up by 36% from 1996 when 68% considered it a luxury. No one had cell phones listed as a necessity in 1996, but anyone who has worked a major trade show would be hard pressed to live without one.

One stat of special interest was that cars were the only item on the list that actually shrank slightly, to 91%. As urban communities grow, public transportation and bicycling are experiencing a resurgence. Nevertheless, for most of us the automobile or truck we drive is an essential part of our lives. Because this is so, it's necessary to take care of it. Check your fluid levels on a regular basis, maintain tire pressure, and make sure your air filter is clean. If you need help and want some reminders as to when you need to change your oil or take care of other maintenance matters, park your information at MyAMSOILGarage. Taking car of your car will help save you money so you can have a little extra cash for the next big thing we can't live without... How about that that trip around the moon you always wanted to take?

Park Your Vehicle Info at MyAMSOILGarage

Where do you park your vehicle information? Do you have a special place where you keep your maintenance records? Wouldn't it be great to bring a little organization to your vehicle maintenance info?

Even though AMSOIL is a synthetic oil company that offers products for all your vehicle lubrication needs, we also have some great online tools to help you as well. Being that this is Cyber-Monday, it seems like a great time to share our online parking garage... MyAMSOILGarage.

Currently vehicle information for more than 135,000 vehicles is stored here with reminders so you know when to schedule your next change your oil, along with records of every other kind. Whatever your make and model, we have a safe place for you to keep it... or rather, to keep your records. We've got Jaguars, Minis, Cadillacs, Alfa Romeos and even a Yugo.

You can also store info on your powersports toys as well. And here are two bonuses: (1) it's free, and (2) you don't have to be an AMSOIL customer.

Here's an interesting stat. One quare foot of real estate in Manhattan is now $3,000. We're offering you as much real estate as you can possibly use for parking ALL your vehicles, and your friends' vehicles, too.

Visit MyAMSOILGarage and open an account today.

Whatever you drive, you can park it at MyAMSOILGarage.

Park Your Car At MyAMSOILGarage

AMSOIL knows today's drivers are focused on vehicle maintenance more than ever before. This includes scheduled oil changes and regular service, which can be difficult to keep track of in your busy life. This past fall AMSOIL introduced a user-friendly feature called MyAMSOILGarage™ to help to change that. Vehicle maintenance can be monitored and scheduled through one easy-to-use source here on the AMSOIL website.

By safely storing vehicle information in a virtual ‘garage’, you can eliminate the need to enter the year, make, model and engine size each time you need product recommendations or capacities. You can also schedule oil change reminder e-mails, keep a vehicle maintenance log, and view recommended AMSOIL lubricants and filters for your specific vehicle all in one central location. These significant improvements to the standard AMSOIL Automotive & Light Truck Lookup save you time, effort and money. Let AMSOIL maintain these records in the MyAMSOILGarage™ feature so you don’t have to.

We’re hoping you’ll park your vehicles here, too, along with the thousands of other motorists we're taking care of. For more information go to MyAMSOILGarage™.

Sometimes, the best things in life really are free.